April
April, 2003
Is
there a poet with thoughts of a new beginning who doesn't turn
those thoughts toward April? The muse imbues their steadying thought:
that once again in the tufts of grass, small buds sprouting on
dead branches, and in a glimpse of yellow or red or green bleeding
through shoots pushed up from the cold earth, April is here.
Azaleas,
blooming like the miracle of "scarlet ribbons, in gay profusion,"
are everywhere - in manicured gardens and open lots, in stone
planters or forming floral hedges around church properties and
old plantations alike.
The
birds are back. St. Simons is one of the southernmost Barrier
Islands off the coast of Georgia, yet the birds still fly "south"
and do come back. Knowing they leave here tells me we do have
seasons not too different from the easily definable Winter, Spring,
Summer and Fall in the North. Of course, in this morning's chilly
air, I wondered why that would be important to me.
Pope Gregory may have changed the calendar for the Christian world
in 1564, moving New Year's Day to January first from its long-standing
April first date, but he didn't change this feeling that today
we begin again to see the acorns turn into oak trees as the woods
replenishes itself.
(Just in case the origin of April Fool's Day enters your mind,
I'll skim over where it came from and when. We didn't have instant
notification when news of interest to the entire population was
announced. I've heard it said such news traveled by "sandles wire"
so when the calendars changed, many citizens didn't know it and
would start their New Year's Festivities on April first as they
always had. They'd be pointed at and jeered and when that sport
ended, the custom of April Fools jokes began. "Your shoelace is
untied.")
A
hundred years before I was born, poet Robert Browning wrote about
April in his "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad":
O,
to be in England
Now
that April's there.
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware.
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
in England -- now!
He
was here, writing of there, and his memory brought it all into
one feeling that is April. I'm not writing from abroad; I'm looking
out my back window and the backyard birds are pecking at the food
that spilled from the feeders when too many approached it for
breakfast. The scrappy bluejays, the gentlemanly cardinals, the
morning doves.
The
crepe myrtles will soon bloom for the fourth year since we planted
them -- one for each grandchild -- while the bales of pine straw
are stacked and waiting for ambition and a rake to spread a dark
brown covering over the yard.
April is a coming together of all our senses. The sun shines from
low on the horizon reaching windows it left in shadow all winter.
April rain is soft and gentle, coming and going, not heavily but
often. You can see April; you can hear it, smell it, taste it
and savor it in all its essence.
Everything
is newly born, soft and pure and innocent. It's not for us to
focus on the dead leaves and branches that will inevitably follow
a summer of fireflies and gaudy bouquets, gathered for the joy
of mixing and matching on a table set for summer fare. There's
time for that, but not this time.
This
time is for April and it's here - now!
|
